Can Xue - Vertical Motion

We are little critters who live in the black earth beneath the desert. The people on Mother Earth can’t imagine such a large expanse of fertile humus lying dozens of meters beneath the boundless desert. Our race has lived here for generations. We have neither eyes nor any olfactory sense. In this large nursery, such apparatus is useless. Our lives are simple, for we merely use our long beaks to dig the earth, eat the nutritious soil, and then excrete it. We live in happiness and harmony because we have abundant resources in our hometown. Thus, we can all eat our fill without a dispute arising. At any rate, I’ve never heard of one.

In our spare time, we congregate to recall anecdotes of our forebears. We begin by remembering the oldest of our ancestors and then run through the others. The remembrances are pleasurable, filled with outlandish salty and sweet flavors, as well as some crispy amber — the immemorial turpentine. In our recollections, there is a blank passage that is difficult to describe. Broadly speaking, as one of our elders (the one with the longest beak) was digging the earth, he suddenly crossed the dividing line and vanished in the desert above. He never returned to us. Whenever we remembered this, we fell silent. I sensed that everyone was afraid.

Even though people never descended to our underground, we actually gained all kinds of information about the mortals above us. I don’t know what sort of channel this information came from. It is said that it was very mysterious, and that it had something to do with our builds. I’m an average-sized, ordinary individual of my genus. Like everyone else, I dig the earth every day and excrete. Recalling our ancestors is the greatest pleasure in my life. But when I sleep, I have some odd dreams. I dream of seeing people; I dream of seeing the sky above. Human beings are good at movement. They feel bumpy to the touch. I’m extremely jealous of their well-developed limbs, because our limbs have atrophied underground. We all move about by wiggling and twisting our bodies. Our skin has become too smooth, easily injured.

We make these kinds of remarks about humankind:

“If you approach the border of the yellow sand, you can hear camel bells ringing: this is what our grandfather told me. But I don’t want to go to such a place.”

“Human beings reproduced too quickly: it is said that their numbers are immense. They’ve consumed all of earth’s food, and now they’re eating yellow sand. It’s dreadful.”

“If we don’t think about the sky and the people on earth, doesn’t that ultimately mean that those things don’t exist? We have enough memories and knowledge of this kind of thing. It’s pointless to go on exploring.”

“The yellow sand above us is more than ten meters deep. It’s just like the end of the world to those of us who live in the warm, moist, deep soil. I’ve been to the boundary and have felt the desire to thrust upward. Here and now, I’d like to recall that time.”

“Our kingdom of the black earth didn’t always exist. It came into being only later. Our oldest ancestors didn’t always exist, either. They, too, came into being only later. And so here we are. Sometimes I think that maybe one of us should take a risk. Since we came from nowhere, taking risks is part of our obligation.”

“I want to take a risk, too. I’ve begun fasting recently. I hate my sweaty, damp, and slippery body. I want a change. Whenever I think of yellow sand dozens of meters deep, I’m terrified. But the more terrified I am, the more I want to go to that place. There, I would certainly lose all sense of direction. Probably my only sense of direction would come from gravity. But would gravity change in such a place? I’m very worried.”

“We remember all of the history and all of the anecdotes. Why have we forgotten only our long-beaked grandpa? I always feel that he’s still alive, but I can recall nothing about him. Recollections concerning each of us are preserved only in our hometown. Once one leaves here, one is thoroughly invalidated by history.”

“When I grow quiet, whimsical ideas come into my mind. I would like our collective to ease me into oblivion. Yet, I know this can’t be done here. Here, my every word and action will be preserved in everyone’s memories, and will be passed on from generation to generation.”

“I think I can grow bumpy skin; I just have to make a point of exercising every day. Recently, I’ve been rubbing and scraping against the rigid clods in the earth. After my skin bleeds, scabs form. It seems this is working.”

It’s worth pointing out that we critters don’t congregate in a certain space for our meetings (as the human beings above us do), for our kingdom of the black earth has no spaces. Everything is packed together. When we do assemble for recreation or discussion, the earth still blocks us off from each other. The black earth is a very good medium for transmitting sound. Everyone can hear every single one of our utterances, even if it’s in the feeblest voice. Sometimes while we’re digging, we accidentally run into another body. At such times, both sides may feel really disgusted. Ah, we really don’t care to have any bodily contact with our own race! It’s said that the people above us had to have sexual intercourse in order to propagate: this is much different from our asexual reproduction. Indeed, what does sexual intercourse look like? We don’t yet have any detailed information about this. Sometimes when I think of being entangled with my own kind, I start squealing from nausea.

=

When we stop digging, we don’t move. We’re like pupae as we dream in the black earth. We know that our dreams are similar, but our dreams have never been strung together. Each of us has his or her own dreams. During those long dreams, I can bore deep into the earth and then fuse into a single body with the earth. In the end, my dreams are about only the earth. Long dreams are great, for they are sheer relaxation. But if this goes on for a long time, I feel vaguely discontented, because a dream of earth can never give me the joy that I most want to experience.

Once, we gathered together and talked of our dreams. After I related one of mine, I began crying in despair. What kind of dream was it? It was blacker and blacker until finally it became the black earth. In my dream, I wanted to make a sound, but my mouth had vanished. One after another they consoled me, referring to our ancestors to prove nothing was wrong with our lives. I stopped crying, but something ice-cold settled into my body. I thought it would be difficult to hang onto my previous optimistic attitude toward life. Subsequently, even during working hours, I could feel the heavy black earth pushing down on my heart. Even my rigid beak was weakening, and it itched now and then. I wanted the relaxation that comes from dreaming, but I didn’t want the fatigue that comes after waking from a dream. I didn’t want to lose interest in life. I must have been possessed. Was I going to disappear in the boundless yellow sand just as our missing ancestor had?

I had recently lost weight, and I was sweating a lot — more than usual. Perhaps because of my mood, I was about to fall ill. When I dug the earth, I heard my companions encouraging me, but for some reason this didn’t cheer me up. Instead, I felt sorry for myself and was sloppily sentimental. At break time, an elder talked to me of my late father. He had a lovely buzzing voice, much like the sound sometimes made by the black earth. I called that sound a lullaby. The elder said my father had had a last wish, but he’d been unable to express it. Those beside him didn’t probe, either, and thus his last wish hadn’t been preserved in our memories. Near death, my father made an odd sound. This old man had been nearest to him, so he heard the sound the most distinctly. He understood immediately that my father wanted to fly like a bird in the sky.